Yeah it's OK for typesetting books but very verbose for chatting. Though if you need to chat about integrals and the like I guess you are stuck with it.

We're just talking about LaTeX's math mode here. Are there any more concise and easier ways to type math on a normal keyboard and have it display in a pretty way?

Maple will take input like

  y=int(x^2,x=0..100) 

and turn it into pretty print. That seems more natural than LaTeX. LaTeX is for getting exactly what you want on paper, at the expense of ease of typing.

Is that harder than $\int_{0}^{100} x^2 dx$? Your version is only 4 chars less, and mine looks more like the actual math...

LaTeX has the added advantage that most mathematicians have it in muscle memory. (I have latex in emacs muscle memory, so I have a hard time using mathim.)

i find the non-latex version better because it has fewer $ and \ and {}

Mathematica will do

    In[1]:= Unevaluated[y = Integrate[x^2, {x, 0, 100}]] // TeXForm
    Out[1]= y=\int_0^{100} x^2 \, dx

which in that case is rather pointless but I suppose it could be helpful in the case of something more complicated.

Maybe Maple can do that too; I don't know since I've only ever used Maple for one 20-minute session and don't have a copy handy.

Yes, it can, and the input syntax is much nicer, even:

  > latex('y = int(x^2, x=0..100)')
  
  y=\int _{0}^{100}\!{x}^{2}{dx}

I've been playing with Open Office Math lately, and using it to convert to MathML. It may be worth a look (behaves like the formula insert in OO Writer).